The present invention, in general relates to support of Information Technology (IT) infrastructure. More specifically, it relates to managing and resolving IT incidents related to the IT infrastructure.
An IT incident is an event that is apparent and typically results in an interruption or a reduction in the performance of enterprise applications, hardware or network. IT incidents are often the result of failures or errors in the applications, electronic devices, or network infrastructure. Examples of IT incidents are exceeding disk-usage threshold, web page not displaying, application performing below performance thresholds, printer not printing, forgotten password, and so forth. These and similar IT incidents are often reported to an IT service desk. The IT service desk very often is a central point where IT incidents are reported and service requests are made. The IT service desk typically keeps users informed about the IT incidents, actions, and opportunities that affect the users.
According to conventional methods, the IT incidents are typically referred to the IT staff and handled manually by the IT staff with assistance from documentation, knowledge bases, and scripts. The IT staff typically comprises a team of dedicated technical professionals. The documentation, knowledge bases, and scripts also need to be manually updated periodically as new IT incidents keep occurring. However, as a result of IT infrastructure complexity and a need to reduce IT failures, automation of IT incident management is required. The ability to identify the root cause of IT failures, document solutions, and automate the problem-resolution processes can enhance the performance of the IT infrastructure.
Currently, the need for automation is partially fulfilled using methods that utilize IT service desk software. Existing IT service desk software for IT incident handling provides interfaces for maintaining a log of IT incidents and solutions for those IT incidents. Other software includes monitoring software that keeps a track of network infrastructural devices and raises alarm in case of an error. The monitoring software may contain limited scripts to diagnose errors. Manual intervention is often required while using monitoring software, to resolve the IT incidents.